[VIDEO] The Prime Times - January 2016

The Prime Times is back with the 1st dose of health and insurance news from around the world for 2016!. This month we examine a new report on medical risk around the world, what insurers are doing in anticipation of rising numbers of global expats, and what a UN climate conference says about future risk.

Global medical & travel security company International SOS has recently released their travel risk map for 2016.

With regards to medical security, the map gives every country worldwide a rating on the level of travel risk that can be found there – from low to very high, and including a special category of “Rapidly Developing Variable Risk”.

Users of this tool can click on any country to see how it rates for medical or travel security risk. The criteria

Boom in Expats Breeds New Products

Our next story is all about Pacific Prime’s bread and butter: Expats and insurance.

The movement of people to foreign countries around the world for work is booming these days, and insurers are taking notice.

This is evidenced by insurance companies taking the initiative to create new products tailored to the people they have witnessed flocking overseas. For example, AIG in the UK have launched a new product known as Expatriate Care specifically for UK companies that have employees stationed in offices overseas. AIG is partnering with plan administrator Henner to give members access to ove 35,000 medical providers in 160 countries.

Research and Markets at AIG has stated that the number of expats worldwide in 2014 sat at 50 million, and this number is expected to rise to 60 million by 2020. Furthermore, while many of these expats are covered by domestic insurance in their home country, only around a third of them possess international health insurance.

Another insurer, Cigna Global Health Benefits, is offering a new product similar in function to the AIG plan, but for multinationals in Africa.

To find out more about plans from AIG and Cigna, contact Pacific Prime today.

Climate Change and Risk

Our last story comes to you as the result of the recently concluded UN Climate Change Conference in Paris.

The conference highlighted growing risk, as natural disasters triggered by climate change may lead to future food shortages due to damage to agricultural sectors in developing nations.

Specifically, the conference looked at the rising incidence of climate-related disasters from the 10 year period between 2003 and 2013. During this period of time it could be seen that the average number of such disasters has nearly doubled since the 1980s to the tune of 1.5 trillion US dollars in damage.

A Food & Agriculture report released by the UN stated that the impact of extreme weather events on agriculture is likely to worsen in coming years, thereby making the battles against hunger and poverty, as well as the spread of sustainable development, much more difficult. This, of course, could potentially affect the health and wellbeing of billions of people worldwide.

To deal with this issue, most of the international community committed themselves to the Sustainable Development Goals and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030.

Needless to say, it’s up to individuals and governments alike to hold ourselves to a high standard regarding climate change in order to save the lives of future generations.

That’s it for this edition of the Prime Times. We’ll be back next month with another dose of health and insurance news. Until then, for all your international health insurance needs, be sure to check out PacificPrime.com!